On the Radio

This Monday, February 2^nd, I have the privilege of doing a live radio interview with Rick Horne, author of Get Outta My Face. You can listen live on the Internet at 1 pm, at this location: http://www.christiantalk660.com Just click on the listen button. It is a call-in program, so call 1-888-660-9535 if you would like to join in. I would love to hear from you.

This book is a needed and helpful addition to the field of dealing with teenagers. Sadly, too many Christian families are plagued by intense and disturbing relations between parents and their teenage children. Rick Horne takes these issues head on and offers targeted help from the rich resources of biblical wisdom literature. Here is an excerpt from his book, demonstrating his sympathetic understanding of the problems and offering hope that things can be dramatically different, by God’s grace.

The testimony of Scripture is that our words make a difference: changing people and situations. In fact, Proverbs 18 asserts that our words tend to move things in one of two directions:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (v. 21).

Our words to angry or unmotivated teens are no exception. What we speak can encourage or discourage, energize or dishearten. How we speak to our teens and what we say can exasperate and infuriate, or communicate hope and anticipation. Truly, our words tend to influence our hearers toward the most radical of extremes: either death or life.

Of course, we want life for our teens. Proverbs 15:4 tells us how we can help move our teens in that direction, “A gentle tongue is a tree of life.” Bracketing the Bible with its appearances in Genesis and Revelation is the ultimate “tree of life.” Rightly used, it brings health and healing to broken people. The LCLP process shows you how to bring a gentle tongue to your every conversation with angry, unmotivated young adults, thus pointing them toward life.

Wise, gentle speech can whet your teen’s appetite with hope that things in his or her broken world can change for the better. Pray that your Father will use the biblical principles that underlie listening big, clarifying narrow, looking wide, and planning small to usher in that kind of hope. By God’s grace let your words produce, not merely changes in your teen’s outward behavior, but, as Part III will show, changes in the heart, wherein lie the “springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

This is an example of the wise, compassionate counsel that you will receive from Rick Horne. Why not take time to listen to the interview today? You can purchase the book here.

We will return to the topic of gaming in the next post.